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In the name of research

So, as you may or may not remember, I was planning a research trip to Virginia for Crimson Hollow purposes. Well, I went last week, and got home Saturday, and I'm definitely glad I went. We stayed in Newport News, as it was sort of centrally located to a lot of the places I wanted to visit.

Sunday we ended up checking out Endview Plantation (it was set during the Civil War era, which is later than the time in my flashbacks, but it was still very useful for me) and Rosewell Plantation (which is actually a ruin, so that was kind of cool).

Monday we went to Smithfield, largely known for its ham (though we skipped the meat processing plant...), but also with a very neat historical area that has now become the model for Barstow, the fictional town in the series.

Tuesday was spent at Historic Jamestowne, and this was probably my favorite place we went to. There's very little I can find online regarding American history, specifically history in this part of Virginia, before the 1700's, and Historic Jamestowne was a veritable treasure trove. Everything here is from the early 1600's, and though Crimson Hollow does not have a fort, the general layout of the original settlement is very helpful for me in terms of imagining how Crimson Hollow would have began, and how it would have grown.

Wednesday was spent at Williamsburg, and in hindsight, I wish we had gone to Jamestown Settlement instead, as it would have been more helpful for me, but oh well. Williamsburg was interesting, but not quite what I wanted. Still, I did learn things. The cabinet maker was very useful, as Elric, one of the main characters in Crimson Hollow, is a wood carver and is largely responsible for building the furniture and houses for those in the village. I do wish the tailor had been open while we were there, as Elric's wife Adelaide is largely responsible for the making and mending of the clothing in the village, so that was a bit of a let-down for me.

Thursday and Friday were sort of "free" days, as I didn't have much planned beyond what we saw the previous days, but it was nice to wind down the trip in a relaxing sort of way, which made the drive back home more bearable.

I don't think it's out of the question that I may go back someday, and spend more time with Jamestown. It was more useful than I thought it would be, and I would really like to go back and see and learn more. There are several active archaeological digs happening in Historic Jamestowne, so I'm excited to see what new information might be revealed.

Anyway, I took a good number of pictures, so here's a few to make this post worthwhile XD Click to embiggen.

The front of the Endview house.

Back of the house.

Small family cemetery right next to the house.

Rosewell ruins.

Rosewell ruins.

Intersection in Smithfield that gave me a lot of nice vibes for Crimson Hollow. The house on the corner is a bed and breakfast.

Smithfield had a lot of cool old houses, some of which seemed to be in the process of being repaired/restored/renovated, like this one.

Inside the church. They're doing excavations on the previous churches, and the ranger guide told us that if you see the archaeologists wearing masks, they're dealing with remains, so these folks must have had some remains here.

There's not much happening over here, writing-wise, unfortunately. I'm still entrenched in a book I'm helping one of my clients publish, and it's severely cut into my own writing time. I'm ready to be done with it so I can get back to my own stuff, but I think the end is still a ways away.

On the bright side, No Safe Place will be on sale next month! I wanted to do a sale in January, but the money didn't quite work out for buying promos, but my tax refund should be depositing this week, so I'll be able to submit for a few promos. The sale will run March 9 through March 16 (coinciding with the dates Hannah was missing in the book), so mark your calendars and tell your friends!

I also meant to do a sale on The Only One for Valentine's Day, but I've been busy with work and other things and it just completely slipped my mind to try to plan it, but I'm going to try to schedule one, maybe for April (perhaps for my birthday, who knows).

I have finally received my rights back from Amazon for No Safe Place, but it's not effective until December, which puts a bit of a crimp in my planned Christmas promotion, as I can't run a Kindle Countdown Deal on it until it's been up for 30 days.

However, I am still doing a Christmas promo, just on a different book: Finding Home Again will be on sale from December 20 through December 27! I've booked a few promos, a couple through tried and true sites, and one through a new one that I decided to test out, so we'll see how it goes.

I'm planning to place No Safe Place at 99 cents for the first few days, for those that might want to buy it again for the new cover and minor text changes (which I still have to finish, but NaNo...), and then I'll probably do a Kindle Countdown Deal on that in January.

The Only One will likely get its own KCD around Valentine's Day. I'm trying to make 2019 the year of better promotin…